#MadGeniusLive: Pimento Cheese

Join us every Thursday at 11 AM ET for genius ideas in food, entertaining, travel and more! And if you make any of the recipes shown today, show us using #MadGeniusLive for a chance to be featured on next week's episode.
On this week's #MadGeniusLive, Melissa Clark of The New York Times joins Justin Chapple for an episode devoted entirely to a Southern classic: Pimento cheese.

mkgalleryamp; Wine

February 27, 2018

Hide Transcript

[MUSIC] You are tuning into Mad Genius Live. I've had
a special guest today. Melissa Clark from New York Times
is here to talk about her new book Dinner in
an Instant. Melissa what do you gonna make for us?
Pimiento Mac and Cheese [MUSIC] My gosh Melissa is so
cute. Everybody, good morning and welcome to Mad Genius Live.
My name is Justin Chapple. I am your host today.
And we have a really exciting show for you. If
you tuned in last week then you know we want
you to engage, we want you to interact, ask questions,
send us suggestions. Or just make some comments, tell us
your opinion. Do it all using our handy, dandy hashtag
mad genius live. You could use it on all platforms.
I'm really excited to be here today, and it's our
second show. So if you were here last week. Then
you know we asked you to tune in, and we
asked you to use the hashtag. And in hopes of
getting a little shout-out on the show, or a shout-out
on our Instagram account. So please do so and I'm
gonna tell you why, because we're gonna introduce. I'm sorry
let me go back. We're going to show you a
picture of somebody who cooked a recipe from last week.
Cravings in Instagram. It's a really beautiful picture. We're going
to put it up now. She made our flaxseed furikake
from last week. And I mean that is spectacular and
we're really excited. So just like cravingsinamsterdam, if you use
the hashtag and show us what you cook at home
then you just might get featured on Mad Genius Live.
But You know, I have to introduce you someone whom
I would like to think of as a friend, and
I'm actually really honored that she decided to come on
the show today. We're friends! We are friends! We're totally
friends. And I'm so grateful because for a very long
time, for many years, Melissa has been Been an icon,
a food icon that she is one of my idols
in the industry, it's someone who I aspire to be
like, because her recipes are foolproof, and- You need more
hair. I just need a little bit more hair. I
once had a lot of hair, but- [LAUGH] Now it's
a little short. Specially cuz I got a hair cut
this week. It's very nice. But Melissa is here, she
is a food writer for the New York Times, which
is incredible and she also has a new book out.
I do have a new book out. So you've got
it right here, Dinner in an Instant. Now we were
talking about this before, are you an instant pot person?
Have you embraced the electric pressure cooker? Or you- [LAUGH]
So I am a instant pot newbie. So our test
kitchen manager here, Food and Wine, Kelsey Youngman is the
expert. So she teaches me everything Instant pot. But that's
part of why we wanted you on the show, because
you are an Instant Pot expert. I am. I mean,
I don't think I'm an expert, but I'm definitely an
enthusiast. I love the Instant Pot And I wrote a
book about it. And you know it all started because
I'm a columnist for the New York Times and I
wrote an article about the instant pot phenomenon. Because all
of a sudden you'd see, like you'd go on Instagram,
everybody would be Instant Pie Right. You know where they'd
put up their photos There is this Facebook group that
has like a million users. It became this phenomenon almost
over night. And I wanted to see what the fuss
was about. So I got one of these things and
I started cooking. And I fell in love. You can
make, you know brisket that takes two and a half
hours. You do it in like 45 minutes. My favorite,
beans, dried chick peas. Okay, Soak them overnight and cook
them for four hours. And forget about it. 50 minutes
starting from the dry peas. Stuff like this changes people's
lives. It literally changes week night cooking. It does. It
does. You can do a lentil soup in six minutes.
You can do steel cut oats in the morning in
five minutes. I mean this is the kind of thing
that just helps people. And like a slow cooker, you
just plug it in and you walk away. And it
just Does it. I love that. And it's so funny
that you say that because, and this is gonna speak
to how much I love Melissa Clark, but. So, everyone
was talking about the Instapot and I was like, I
don't need a machine. I'm like, I like to cook.
Yeah. I like to use pots, real pots. And then
I heard that you were writing A book. And I
was like, my God, what is all the fuss about?
So then I was like, okay, I need to be
a convert, because Melissa Clark's doing it, so I might
as well do it. [LAUGH] So you know what they
call it, people who love the Instant Pot? What's that?
Potheads. [LAUGH] So we're just gonna be potheads together here.
I think there's definitely- 11 o'clock in the morning. A
pun intended Intended. Yeah, just a little bit. Okay, so
I'm gonna, by the end of this show, I'm gonna
be a pothead. You're gonna be a pothead, we're gonna
be potheads together. And so one thing about the Instant
Pot is that, so mac and cheese, we're gonna make
pimento mac and cheese. We are making pimento mac and
cheese! And it's some things it does better than the
stove, like meat And beans they're better, they're actually like
more evenly cooked. Mac and cheese it does it also
like really reliably, and you can go do other thing.
Cause you're like why would you do mac and cheese
in this when it's not, it doesn't take a long
time. Because it does it beautifully, and we're gonna show
you. And then you could just walk away. Yeah. Great,
so when Melissa told me she wanted to make pimento
mac and cheese on the show I got really excited
and actually decided to theme the whole show around pimento
cheese. And there's another reason for that- Because you're a
mad genius- Because I'm a mad genius, but I got
the idea from you. But I also got the idea
because, so my friend Ashley Christiensen who's a chef in
North Carolina, she has Beasley's and has Poole's Diner. She
actually sent me a care package Of the different pimento
cheeses she makes and she does, you can see it
right here on my Instagram, she does a variety of
them and one of them, she actually uses green peppers
instead of red peppers, and so she uses poblanos. Which
is a little bit spicier than the pimento Right. And
like a little bit smokey Yep And I was like,
my gosh. I literally have to steal this idea. I'm
borrowing it. Cuz I'm totally giving her all the credit
for it. And I actually -> She's inspired you. We
love to inspire each other. Right? Exactly. We inspire each
other. You inspire me all the time. [NOISE] No, it's
true. I want to make the apple all the time.
This is changing my life as we speak. So he
makes this apple tart where he like makes the apple
into a rose. Like how beautiful is that. I'm going
to do that. Well, your version will pry be better
than mine. So Ashley inspired me to create a bunch
recipes. But because I though a lot of people Maybe
a lot of people watching don't realize what pimento cheese
is but it's a very American thing, right? Yes. So
I figured we'd start with my version of a very
classic one and then we'll move on to my riff
and then we'll move on to your Instant Pot mac
and cheese. To the new classic mac and cheese with
pimentos. And the Instant Pot of course. We're gonna start
Pimento can be spelled two ways. I don't wanna get
into all the nitty gritty but, it can be spelled
with two I's which is pimiento, which is actually the
Spanish term for sweet red pepper correct? Correct exactly. And
then in America when we say pimento which is spelt
with one I, we usually refer to the pimento cheese
which is actually [UNKNOWN] here. These little guys. These little
guys here. Which you find in a jar pretty much
anywhere. Yep. So okay, let's get started with my classic
version. But wait, we have to say something about pimientos.
Pimiento stuffed olives are underrated, and I want to do.
You and I need to do more, so if anybody
out there loves pimiento-stuffed olives, I mean, am I the
only one? No, I love them. Martini, we want to
hear what you're doing with them. Martinis, bloody Mary's. No,
no, but aside from drinks. You can use them in
salads and things, so tell us, please. Hashtag. I think
we need to have you back To do that. Okay,
call to action. Using hastag madgeniuslive. Give us some ideas.
We want to be inspired by you. And I want
to learn fun things, other than just eating them out
of my martini. Pimento stuffed olives, ready, set, go. Okay,
so let's get started. So I'm gonna have to drain
the pimentos in this bowl here. Because this is very
simple, there's very few ingredients. And I have some shredded
yellow cheddar here. Which is the main ingredient besides the
pimentos and You can't use white cheddar for this right
because it's not going to look right?>> Not for this
version.>>Right it's not going to look right.>> The classic version
is it's like orange, it's bright orange.>> It's got to
be.>> Yes, so I just shredded this in my food
processor but I want to show you, you can do
this all by hand it can be a A really
a dump and stir recipe and I tend to like
my pimento cheese really fine. But some people like it
a little more course. So I just wanna show people
two ways of using a box grater. So if you
press firmly and you do long strokes with your cheese
on your box grater, you get these long shreds. But
for my pimento cheese I like to do little short.
Spurts like this, because you get much finer cheese. You
know, I actually never knew that you could do, I
never thought about. [LAUGH] I've never thought about the two
different ways to grate cheddar cheese. So this is. Handy
dandy box grater ladies and gentlemen. This is a good
thing. Okay, let me just add this in here. And
you finish that. Yep, and then we're going to. You
want me to do the onion? I'm gonna hand you
this. You wanna stir the peppers into here? Sure. So
here you go. [SOUND] And then another ingredient which, some
people put garlic, some people use onion, some people don't
use any. I like to grate onion and add it
to the mixture. And I'm grating it because obviously we're
not using a food processor or anything like that. We're
just Well another great thing about grating sorry. [LAUGH] Is
that embarrassing? is that you get the juice. It's not
just the pieces of onion, you're getting onion juice and
that mixes in really well so you're getting a more
intense onion flavor for using less of the onion, if
that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense and
it also But the little pieces that you get in
there from grainy are not the little pieces where you're
gonna get and then you're like, my God my breath's
gonna smell- Right, exactly. All day long. The juice's much
better Right. It actually gets into everything and you don't
have those little pieces stuck on your teeth. Right. So,
we like grater. And also for garlic too. Do you
use that for garlic? Yeah, of course. I'm a huge
grated garlic person. Every night for dinner when I make
my salad dressing, I grate a clove of garlic into
the bowl. Uh-huh. A whole clove of garlic for just
the two of us. We're used to each other so
it's fine. [LAUGH] A pinch of salt, lemon juice, and
olive oil and that's my salad dressing. [SOUND] Okay, so
I have about two tablespoons of Grated onion. I'm going
to put it in, let you mix it around. It's
very fragrant, that onion. But another thing, it doesn't hurt
my eyes. When you grate it, it's not, you know
when you cho pit and you start to cry immediately,
the grating is a little more gentle on the eyes.
A lot more gentle. And then, of course, the other
main ingredient is mayonnaise. Everything should have mayonnaise. Everything should
have mayonnaise or butter. Almost, almost everything I put it
in? Yeah, go ahead. So it's not, let me just
reach over you. It might sound a little crazy, but
this is actually, I don't think you can make pimento
cheese without mayonaisse, right? You can't, why would you do
such a thing? Because it's kind of a basically, and
I don't think we got into exactly what pimento cheese
is, but it's basically like a dip or a spread.
Right. And you can, as you can see here we
have a beautiful [INAUDIBLE] platter with tons of crackers. Because
I don't think you, I don't eat pimento cheese without
either Ritz or saltines. Which do you like better, Ritz
or saltines? Ritz. Yes, Ritz are better. Because it's so
buttery and deliciious. All right. I'm going to add some
hot sauce here. I do a half a teaspoon but,
That's a lot. That's good. I know, it is a
lot. It gives it a kick. I like it. Every,
yesterday when we were making some of this in the
kitchen here. [UNKNOWN] is like, a half a teaspoon? Yeah,
no because you know what? It's not just the spice,
it's also, Tabasco has vinegar. Mm-hm. And it's like you
need the vinegar to cut the richness of the mayo
and the cheese. Like it all just, it's just like
a perfect food. Yep. Pimento cheese, it's a perfect food.
I'm gonna add a little of salt. Pepper, okay great,
great. Do you add pepper to yours? I do, I
actually add black pepper. And you know what else I
add sometimes when I'm feeling like wild and crazy? Celery
salt. Oooo. I know, that was a little thing I
picked up in the South and it's nice. It just
gives it that little something, something extra. That's really smart.
Some people use garlic powder in the pimento cheese. I
don't like that so much, I just like the onion
and no garlic powder. I like garlic and then, I'm
not a garlic powder person so, but I do like
onion I'm actually a huge garlic powder Are you really?
What do you with it Garlic powder and onion powder,
I make tons of dressing. Like->> Interesting. Fake ranches or
homemade ranches. Okay. So we actually have a question from
a viewer and they wanna know what they could do
if they didn't use mayonaisse. So what do you think?
I would do well with sour cream for sure. Sour
cream. Sour cream is a good one. You need something
to bind it. Right. So look how this is bound
together in that creaminess. If you don't have something like
that, then the cheese isn't gonna adhere So if you
try to use olive oil, it's going to be a
gloppy mess. But I think that you could probably use
yogurt. You could use yogurt, the flavor would be weird.
The flavor would be weird. If you use yogurt, try
to find a really mild Greek yogurt so one that's
not so tangy. That is a really good point. That
looks absolutely beautiful. This is why we have [UNKNOWN] on
the show, because she's here to answer all the difficult
questions. I love to answer, I love answering. My first
gig when I first started out at the New York
Times I wrote a column called the Food Chain and
this was when people actually wrote in letters and asked
questions before people could find anything on the Internet, they'd
write questions like why do eggs deflate if you put
fat in the egg whites when you're beating? Yes, please.
And I would answer them in the paper. And you
can watch videos and read your articles from the New
York Times Cooking, right? Yeah, okay, so New York Times
Cooking, if you're interested in the Instant Pot at all,
New York Times Cooking, nytcooking.com, has a whole guide how
to use it. Everything you've always wanted to know about
the Instant Pot that I wrote. So you have us
check it out. So you should check it out actually.
And we're gonna try this, so. Can we eat this?
Yeah, so this is our classic My version of a
classic pimento cheese. MMMM. You can see here, I like
to serve it with Ritz crackers are my favorite way
to eat it. It's so delicious. But you can have
it with cucumbers, Perfect! And celery. I think I put
a little bit too much tobasco in it. No, I
love it, I love it. It's waking me up this
morning. A little spicy. So. You going to make this
stuff in time? We're going to make the second kind,
which as I mentioned in the opener, is inspired by
Ashley Christianson from North Carolina. She has pools [INAUDIBLE] and
she has beasley's, and she makes a poblano pimento cheese.
So this is a poblano pepper. It's green obviously. It's
a little pointy. And It has kind of a medium
thickness skin, I mean it's not quite as thick as
like a red bell pepper, but it's not super thin.
So we like to peel them. And one of the
ways that we do, how would you describe the flavor
of a poblano? So a poblano I would say it's
a milder chili. You know, it's much more intense than
a bell pepper, of course. But it's not like a
jalapeno, it's much milder, kind of splits the difference. Right.
I love it also for its sweetness. Yeah. It's got
incredible sweetness. So it's sweet and a little bit of
spicy. This is your, like-- If you ever-- Okay, here's
a good hack. [LAUGH] I'm gonna give you a mad
genius tip. Okay. If you ever want-- If you ever
are thinking, I don't wanna use jalapeno in something, it's
just a little too hot, and you can find a
poblano, use a little poblano instead because it's a little
milder. Especially for raw things. That is really, really smart.
Here you go. And this is like one of my
ingrdients for the moment. Like I know it's not a
new thing, but I'm obsessed with it right now. So
I'm so glad it's [UNKNOWN]. So the way that you
peel this. I'm gonna go right over to the stove
here. Because you actually roast these over an open flame
as you know. But just in case people at home
don't realize, you can actually do this right on your
stove top like this. You see, I already have these
charring And they get really nice and black and charred
and you can see that the skin becomes a little
ashy and you can do this under a broiler, really
close to a broiler, and you can also do it
on a barbeque. So, once you get them charred all
over like this you transfer them to a bowl and
I'm going to let you cover this. And, you have
Another mad genius tip for you. I love tips. She's
full of them. I'm going to bring her on the
Mad Genius staff I think. Think. Awesome. So instead mostly
you see how you used plastic wrap but if you
want to do it in slightly more eco friendly way
just put a plate on top of it and then
you don't have the extra trash so. I mean. The
point is you want to steam them. See how the.
Yeah. Steam is building in there? Because the steam is
going to help the skin release easily from the flesh
of the pepper and I just have to say so
right before we went live I was like okay Melissa
then I'm going to ask you to cover. Or we
can use a plate becasue it's a little more eco-friendly
and I was like yes. Yes absolutely we can and
we need to that so we did. Okay I'm going
to show you what these loook like after they steam
and Melissa and I are going to, I'm going to
give one to Melissa, she's goin gto get this big
one. Can I use some paper towels to get off
some of the. My gosh, yeah I have some right
here. Perfectly! Perfect little Look at that! Look at this
paper towels already. So cool, so one of my other
hacks is to have like little individual slices of paper
towels. Yeah, who's going to do that for you? So
check out the [laughter] So here's a hack- Well we
have David McCann who's our test kitchen assistant here, so
he did these for me That's awesome Very nice of
him. I'll could have my child do it actually, my
nine year old is capable of doing that I think.
So You could see here, we're just wiping pretty much,
but I'm gonna just go right over you for this
knife. Yep. You can literally wipe off the skins with
paper towel. Yeah, it comes right off. I sometimes like
to use a knife, like this. And it pretty much,
these are humungous. These are the biggest. I think I'm
gonna cut this. They're beautiful. Some people wanna rinse these
under water, right? And you shouldn't do that cuz then
you're rinsing away a lot of the flavor. Right. So
don't do that. Cuz it releases some oils. Yeah. As
it's cooking, so I'm just peeling it and I'm seeding
it. You see that? I just take that right out.
This is really good->> Sorry, [UNKNOWN] No problem, and you
just scrape off the skin I wanted to slice it
open because I want to show you the other way
I like to peel is. I go like this and
then I'm just going to scrape, I actually learned this
working in restaurants because we had to peel every single
red pepper that we used.>>oh god.>>because it was a classic
french restaurant so.>> Did they make you peel the peas.>>
my gosh, everything, the snap peas even you literally I
was like we're pealing snap peas Who peels a [UNKNOWN]?
I don't even know how to do that. I don't
know. Something's beeping. Something's beeping. That is our swap. That
is [LAUGH]. So I'm just [UNKNOWN]. Are we allowed to
talk about that? We are, cuz it's television but everyone
knows that. Everyone knows we have swaps. Everyone knows that
we have swaps. Okay, so we peeled our peppers. I'm
only gonna use one for this recipe. And I'm going
to transfer it to a food processor. This is Food
and Wine's food processor, that we put out just recently.
And I'm just gonna give it a rough chop to
get it going. You're just using one of them. Just
using one of them. But I wanted to put Melissa
to work. Right, exactly. [LAUGH] Otherwise, what would I do?
I'd twiddle my thumbs. You'll actually Share tons of information
because that's what you've been doing and I love it.
I like wish i had as much information to share
No, you totally do, we're a good team this way
because we can go back and forth. And then that
tip and then that tip! And then that one. So
I'm just going to add this to this food processor
Can we just stop and talk about this like crazy
This is our immersion blender that actually converts into a
food processor, I really love it because it saves a
lot of space in the kitchen. Because you don't have
the thing on the bottom. Exactly! I'm just going to
chop it a little bit. [SOUND] The pepper. And then
I'm going to go ahead and add- will you hand
me a rubber spatula? I will. Thank you. Do you
want me to grate the onion for this? Yes, please.
So, also for this version, I'm putting grated onion in
it. For the same reason as glass but I'm also
gonna add, so I have my pepper in here. I'm
gonna add the graded onion. I'm, gonna add, so for
this version I'm adding green hot sauce. Okay. Instead of
tabasco. To keep the whole thing green. Yeah just to
give it this verde theme goign. I know that you
probably wouldn't do this but what do you think of
the idea of Cilantro in the green version to green
it up. I think it's a great idea. You think
that's a- Because I love cilantro. You think that'd be
good? Yeah. Cilantro haters- But actually, believe it or not,
I'll tell you a little insider secret, and Melissa will
probably be very familiar with this, but when I develop
recipes for Food and Wine, Whether it's the magazine or
the cookbooks or digitally, I always try to keep the
ingredient list really short. Right, right. Yes. It's easier. Yeah.
So although when I create recipes like this, I"m like,
I want to put cilantro in it, I want to
put this and I want to do two kinds of
green peppers. Right. I say to myself, okay, let's start
making it and scale it back. And how do we
get it under ten ingredients? It's like when a French
woman gets stressed, right? She puts on her accessories, and
then before Before she leaves the house, she takes off
one thing. Right? Same thing. So smart. Yup. Okay, so
we have our poblano, we have two teaspoons of green
hot sauce. I added the two tablespoons grated onion. I'm
gonna put it back on and just give it another
quick pulse before, wait, it's all right. [SOUND] I'll go
back. [SOUND] All right, and then I'm gonna add my
mayonnaise, because it has to have mayonnaise, and I'm gonna
add my cheese. So I shredded my cheese prior to
this, but this is what I was saying before where
if I weren't using a food processor, I would want
the cheese more finely shredded. I see. Right. So this
is bigger than your other one. Mm-hmm. Because we're gonna
chop it up more. Yeah. You could see here. Yup.
Like it's so much bigger. Now did you grate that
in the food processor too? Yeah. Did you put the
little graty thing on there? Yeah, I put the little
Grater dis on and then I grate it which made
it a lot quicker. But then I like to put
it in at the end with a blade. Right. Oops,
I'm spilling this everywhere. That's okay, I'll clean up after
you. And then I'm just gonna pulse this. And so
it comes together.https://worker.mturk.com/ And then we're gonna eat it again,
right? Yeah. We should have it in a saltine this
time, just mix it up. What do you think? I
think we should. So we just, you know, be different
that way. Just to be fair. Fair to saltines. [NOISE]
And I'm pausing because I don't wanna puree, I wanna
leave a little bit of texture. [SOUND] But it's okay
if you have texture, because it not only makes it
pretty, but you get all the little bites of everything.
All right, I'm gonna go a litlte bit more. Yeah,
there's like one big chunk in there. One big pepper
that keeps getting stuck on the top. I know, right?
Now I see it. Okay, good. This dang pepper is
gonna be the death of me. We're gonna get it.
We're gonna get that pepper. We're gonna get it, okay.
We're gonna hunt it down and we're gonna puree it.
[SOUND] I think that looks good. Yeah. Looks beautiful. All
right. so this is pablano pimento cheese. Very nice. Imagine
this life. Is that going to be like a new
song? Are you going to have a little number with
that? We're going to have a segment where we just
sing the recipes. I think that that would be quite
good. My god. I could do that. And I'm definitely
going to have you on for that one. Do you
sing? Well no but I'll pretend. I'll fake it, I'll
fake it till I make it Look at this. And
one thing I didn't mention is that you could actually,
so when I tested this recipe I actually didn't add
any salt to it. [CROSSTALK] believe it or not You
didn't add any salt because of the cheese and the
mayo had enough salt or Because of the cheese but
then also because it's, the hot sauce I use is
green it's much milder than tobasco. So I added Like
four times as much. That's right, you just said two
teaspons. Yeah, two teaspons. So after I added the hotsauce,
I actually felt like it didn't need, it really didn't
need any additional salt. Which I know is great for
people at home who are trying to watch their sodium
intake. Okay, look at this, and it's so awesome because
they're both super simple recipies. And as I like to
say on Mad Genius Live, is it's genius because it's
simple. Yes, it's so ture. So true. Actually, that is
true. I'm going to eat this now. Okay. And we
also have to- Wow. Good? That's so good. It doesn't
even need salt. It doesn't even need salt. My God.
I like it just as much as that. I didn't
think I would. Yeah. So we did our classic version,
my version of a classic We did the poblano pimento
cheese. And the great thing about pimento cheese, believe it
or not, it's not just a dip you eat with
crackers and crudites, but you can use it for a
lot of different things. I love to actually make stuffed
grilled cheese with it. And, which we're gonna show you
a picture of, and you can get the recipe for
that, foodandwine.com, there it is. But I also love, and
this is a recent recipe of mine, I like to
stuff it under chicken skin, and then roast the whole
bird. That is insane. It is insane. Yeah. It's beautiful.
It flavors all the meat. It's so good. All right.
All right. The moment we've been waiting for, because although
we love a classic and a riff, we're going to
do the ultimate riff on pimento cheese Pimento mac and
cheese, cuz everybody loves a mac and cheese, and we
love pimento cheese, so. Yes, and so if you're just
joining us, Melissa Clark from the New York Times is
here to talk about her new book, Dinner In an
Instant, which is available everywhere now. Instant Pot. Yes it
is actually, and when you buy your Instant Pot you
can just order it along side. I know, because I
actually went onto Amazon and it said frequently bought together,
you know how it pops up at the bottom. It
says people bought an Instant Pot and they bought Melissa
Clark's book and then they bought 4 other Melissa Clark
books because she has like a hundred of them. [LAUGH]
But not about the Instant Pot, but about other things.
So before we get started with pimento mac and cheese,
just tell us About the book and tell us what
got you started with Instant Pot. As I was saying
earlier, but if you missed it, I was curious about
wha the Instant Pot phenomena was. I'm a reporter for
the times and I had an assignment to find out
why people were in love with their Instant Pot. So
I bought one and, really, I put it through every
single test. I made Pretty much everything you can think
of to make in it, and somethings it does better
than traditional methods. It's fantastic for braising meat, it is
fabulous for making beans, hard root vegetables you know beets
how you put them in the oven and they just
never cook, 15 minutes in the Instapot and so what
it does it does really really well There are some
things it doesn't do. [LAUGH] Do not try to get
crispy in there, it's not gonna get crispy. And I
wrote it all down in the book. And see those
ribs on the cover. My god, sticky ribs, sticky [UNKNOWN]
ribs, 22 minutes. My gosh. I, Set at four hours.
Yeah, because you usually have to do them really low
and slow but because this combines pressure along with heat
you get a very even cooking and you get a
very fast cooking so it's brilliant and you can just
like slow cook I would say It's like a slow
cooker, except it's fast. [LAUGH] You just plug it in
and you walk away and it does its thing. So
Melissa said it was brilliant, but because she's on [UNKNOWN]
side I'm gonna say it's genius. It's genius. It's mad
genius. Okay. So we're gonna make this pimento mac and
cheese and first thing I want you to do- Yes?
Is Okay, one thing, one problem with the instant pot
is because it heats from the bottom. Sometimes, it can
burn. Okay. So, we're gonna brush it with butter to
keep that from happening. Great. So. So, what is one
tablespoon of butter and then just brush it. Can I
just throw it in there? You throw it and then
just brush it about half way at the pot. Okay.
Not even like a third way of the pot. Okay.
And i've got some garlic here. So, what's so great
about cooking your pasta When you make mac and cheese
normally you boil your pasta and then you mix it
with the sauce, right? Right. We're gonna cook it in
the sauce, so it's gonna get incredibly flavorful. A lot
more flavorful than cooking it in water. Which is why
I feel like that's one of the many things that
makes this recipe really genius. So I've got a garlic
clove, cuz garlic. I put garlic in everything. If you
don't like garlic in your mac and cheese, leave it
out. But it really adds a lot A little bit
of cayenne.>>Okay.>> I am just putting this in the blender
and here do you want. Well we have a chopped
one but we chopped a jalepeno. We did the mies
in plas.>> I can chop one for you.>>Here you want
to do it. Okay.>> We'll see if I can get
it done in time, before you need it.>> Otherwise we
have a backup right here.>> Okay. Do you seed your
jalepeno? Okay this is what I do, I kind of
I smell it Okay to see how hot it is
Ohh that's a really Cause you can kind of like,
if prickles your nose, if you smell it and goes
ahh! You gotta- The smell is so sweet. Yeah so
then you can leave the seeds in, because it's not
going to be that hot. I like literally,this is like
blowing my mind becsuse I don't know, I always put
my finger on it and lick it. Sometimes I just
actually lick it. [LAUGH] This is so genius I never
thought about this thing My God. Yeah, it's good, right?
That is crazy. It literally smells sweet. It smells like
a bell pepper. Right, exactly. So you know it's not
going to be that- My God. You might take out
some of the seeds, just cuz it gets texturally a
litlte wonky. Yeah. But you don't have to worry. If
that was really hot, you'd want to really get the
seeds and the veins out. Right. Okay. Mustard powder. I'm
going back to my blender. Mustard powder A little- Which
I love. Yeah, mustard powder just gives it a different
kinda kick. A little bit more butter, cuz why not?
Butter's good. And then here's the thing, cream cheese. Cream
cheese makes mac and cheese super creamy, so- This is
a huge jalapeno. And milk. I'm just going to blend
this whole thing together, and this is the sauce that
we're going to cook the noodles in. And a little
bit of heavy cream. If the heavy cream freaks you
out, just use more milk. I love richness, I love-
But it doesn't look like you're putting too much. No,
it's just a little, and what it does is it
just adds a little bit of roundness and richness, but
it's not, strictly, necessary. Okay, we're gonna- [BLANK_AUDIO] So you
do not put the jalapeno into the blender? No, you
just throw it in the pot. Okay. I'm gonna turn
this on, loud noise, sorry. I was always taught in
video, don't talk over a blender. But because we're live
I don't care! [LAUGH] And we're gonna talk over the
blender. This is the biggest jalapeno I've literally ever chopped.
That is a huge jalapeno. So I'm gonna let you
decide how much we have. We're gonna just use all
of it. Okay. Cuz we're gonna live dangerously. Okay so
you have that all buttered? Yep, this is all buttered,
I got it ready for you. I'm gonna show everybody
how beautiful that is. That is beautiful, thank you. Beautifully
buttered. Let's put this in first. Okay, so we're gonna
add that in here, okay. So this is just So
this is our sauce. Whoop, I got a little milk
on my face. I'm sorry. [LAUGH] I splashed you. Sorry,
sorry. It's all right. No problem. By the way. No
problem, we have our paper towel. Aha, perfect proportioned paper
towel. Yeah. [LAUGH] Okay, I'm throwing this in. Okay. And
when I developed the recipe, first thing I did was
to put the jalapeno in after this came out. I
didn't cook it with it. Uh-huh. I thought I wanted
the crunch. But then it turns out I didn't. It
was too crunchy. I wanted it to be cooked a
little bit, and it infused the sauce with more flavor.
[UNKNOWN] Now we have our noodles. So just macaroni, I've
also done this by the way, if you don't have
macaroni, I had butterflies for [UNKNOWN] Yeah, for [UNKNOWN] And
it works exactly the same. So you can use other
shapes if you're out of macaroni, but classic. I tend
to like a classic elbow. I like a classic too
I'm just gonna give this a stir. [BLANK_AUDIO] Now you
wanna stir it but you don't wanna mess up the
butter on the bottom. Okay, the brushed butter. The brushed
butter, so just give it like a gentle stir, and
then you seal the top. Come on. And you, all
right, this is very important. So you see this little
knob here? Yeah. This is the venting knob and the
sealing knob. If it's not, see it says venting and
it says sealing. If it is not in the right
place, instead of pressurizing, it'll just vent it. So it'll
cook it, but only halfway, and you won't get the
pressure. So you wanna- This is a newbie mistake that
I have made. Everybody makes this mistake, they for get
to put it, they'll leave the knob like this, and
they'll wonder, why is my chicken only halfway cooked? And
it's because, I'm telling you now, don't do that when
you start playing with that. Make sure it is sealed.
Good to know, Mad Genius set, make sure you set.
Yeah, no it's like a little thing that everyone. I
did the same thing when I first got it. Okay,
and thenyou set it to, so we want to set
it to. [BLANK_AUDIO] Is this plugged in? I think it
is plugged in. Is it on? You can turn it
if you need to turn it. It is not- Is
it not working? It's not working. Okay, well let's just
pretend that we set it to six minutes. [LAUGH] Six
minutes on high pressure, so and then it goes beep.
Okay, let's show it. Okay, we're gonna check our plug
but can you show us like what you would do?
Yeah, you would just, you go pressure cook, and then
it would give you a number, and you would just
click it up to six minutes. Okay. I flick it
down, and then it would go on and it will
have a little on and it'll just be lit up
in blue. And it's very pretty. And enough about that,
let's go to the one that we have already cooked.
Okay, just sometimes I see you, it's on manual. You
set it, you set and you set it for six
minutes. So does it takes six minutes or does it
have to [UNKNOWN] from the pressure first? Okay, wait, this
is another thing. When you're using the Instant Pot It
always takes a certain amount of time to reach pressure.
So this takes about ten minutes. So it's 6 minutes
cooking, but 10 minutes of reaching pressure. So it's a
16 minute thing. But you don't have to sit here.
When you're cooking on the stove you have to mind
it. This you plug in, you walk away. You E-mail
someone. You help your kid with your homework. It frees
you up. Which is- I mean, especially on a weeknight
15 minutes is like valuable time- Yes, my god, 15
minutes, I can do so much in 15 minutes on
a week night. Okay, so I'm going to switch with
you because I want you to show us. Okay. So
this is- So you notice that we didn't put the
cheese in yet or the pimento and that's because we
It will get stringy if you cook it in there,
so we're just gonna add it now. Okay. So you
can see this is ready. We're gonna vent it. [SOUND]
Okay. So it's released itself a little bit. Sometimes it
goes [SOUND]. Yeah, so we actually set this right before
we went live. So it's been sitting for about 20
minutes. Okay, and then we're just gonna wait. Now, you
know that this is done venting when this little button
over here is gonna [SOUND] fall down. So, when this
button is raised, it is actually a safety measure. There
it goes. Yeah, see it prevents you from opening. Okay.
And when it drops down- There was a little button
on top. Ooohh. And then here it is. Doesn't it
smell good? Here's your spoon. We got- Or do you
want a bigger spoon, like a wooden spoon? Wooden spoon.
I didn't even see that. Okay, so this looks Okay,
so we're gonna add the cheese. All righty. [BLANK_AUDIO] And
we're gonna add the pimento, and the heat of the
pasta's gonna cook it. And you said, you told me
before that it's always nice to have a little bit
of milk on hand in case. Yeah, because this looks
kind of thick. Sometimes if you let it sit like
a few minutes extra it'll thicken up. Yeah. So Add
a little bit of milk and we're going to stir
it until the cheese melts. And you never know, so
different pastor browns cook at different rates, to see that
you get this and you taste it, it's like this
is a little crunchy, all you would do is take
this, you put it on top, don't seal it. Just
hang out And then, the residual heat and the steam
will continue to cook it, so never worry about it
being a little too crunchy. Right. It'll soften up. I
know we have some towels here. Are you comfortable if
I lift it up just for a second, to show
people all the melty cheese? Yeah, can people see? I'm
just gonna show the camera really quick, so they can
get it. Yeah, yeah. Go for it. And then, we're
gonna put it back cuz I think Melissa wants to
get it. Do you see that, how it's getting super
melty? She's literally stirring the cheese, it's sliding down the
pan, look at that. It's super super creamy. I'm gonna
put it back, let her finish, just for all of
you. I think we're done, I think we're finished. We
can eat this now. It looks like it's ready to
eat. Yeah, we're done. So easy, right? Easy, after work,
super simple feed your kids. By the way, if you
wanna make regular mac and cheese I have a recipe
in my book for regular mac and cheese that doesn't
use pimentos. And it's possibly more child friendly, depending on
your kid. [LAUGH] My kid- Right, because some kids probably
don't like the pepper. Some kids don't like the peppers
especially there's jalape��o in there too, so. Right. So you
can definitely like, so this is like it seems like
a very adaptable recipe as long as you leave kind
of the liquid quantities the same the cheese quantities the
same and all of that, you can kid of customize
it right. Absolutely, you know what I did for, so
I have a new book that I'm working on which
is called Instant Comfort. Yes. Comfort in an instant, and
I did mushroom mac and cheese with [INAUDIBLE] So good.
Yum, yum, like that's kind of that's a really adult
thing. That's like, yeah, that's a grown up version. Look
at how cheesy this is! Yeah. I can't believe how
quick this was! Okay. Can we eat it? Let's try
it. Okay. [LAUGH] Wait it might need salt and pepper.
Here I'll taste it first and let you know. Okay,
I'm sure it's gonna need salt. Maybe a little salt.
Yeah no, sorry, I forgot to salt it. So you
stir in your [UNKNOWN] and then you season it, right?
Yeah, you'd put your salt and peppe in here. This
is so good. Mm-hm, right? Mm-hm, it's like the perfect
mac and cheese. And it's the the whole [CROSSTALK] In
15 work-free minutes. And the whole time, just a little
bit but not too much. Not too much, it's so
good. My goodness, this is so delicious. Don't forget, we
want you to be engaged with in tuning in. Is
this weird? [LAUGH] That is not weird at all. That's
not weird, right? This is a double pimento cheese fantasy
wrong right now. I'm gonna do both. My God, yes,
both! Here, I'll give you a little. Yeah. This is
crazy town right here, this is genius. This is really
good. Let me grab your [UNKNOWN]. Okay. Do this at
home, people, do this at home. Melissa Clark from The
New York Times is here on Mad Genius Live, talking
about her new book, Dinner in an Instant. She just
made, I think it's one of my new favorite mac
and cheese recipes, pimento mac and cheese. We also made
a classic mac and cheese, and a riff on a
classic called poblano pimento cheese Mac and pablano- Pimento cheese.
Pimento cheese. [LAUGHTER] And, I'm so thrilled that you came
on. You're actually my very first guest on the show.
Yay, well thank you for having me. And, you're my
favorite guest, too. And I'm gonna call it that. Well,
I'm your only guest, so I have to be your
favorite. Because- [LAUGHTER] You're literally one of my idols. Thank
you, so much. We're gonna keep eating this- Don't forget
to tune into Mad Genius Live next week. Don't forget
to continue to send comments and questions, because we're going
to get to them, even though we're not live, after
the show, using the #madgeniuslive. And tune in next week
at 11 AM Eastern time on Thursday. Thank you Melissa.
Thanks for having me. [MUSIC]

[MUSIC] You are tuning into Mad Genius Live. I've had
a special guest today. Melissa Clark from New York Times
is here to talk about her new book Dinner in
an Instant. Melissa what do you gonna make for us?
Pimiento Mac and Cheese [MUSIC] My gosh Melissa is so
cute. Everybody, good morning and welcome to Mad Genius Live.
My name is Justin Chapple. I am your host today.
And we have a really exciting show for you. If
you tuned in last week then you know we want
you to engage, we want you to interact, ask questions,
send us suggestions. Or just make some comments, tell us
your opinion. Do it all using our handy, dandy hashtag
mad genius live. You could use it on all platforms.
I'm really excited to be here today, and it's our
second show. So if you were here last week. Then
you know we asked you to tune in, and we
asked you to use the hashtag. And in hopes of
getting a little shout-out on the show, or a shout-out
on our Instagram account. So please do so and I'm
gonna tell you why, because we're gonna introduce. I'm sorry
let me go back. We're going to show you a
picture of somebody who cooked a recipe from last week.
Cravings in Instagram. It's a really beautiful picture. We're going
to put it up now. She made our flaxseed furikake
from last week. And I mean that is spectacular and
we're really excited. So just like cravingsinamsterdam, if you use
the hashtag and show us what you cook at home
then you just might get featured on Mad Genius Live.
But You know, I have to introduce you someone whom
I would like to think of as a friend, and
I'm actually really honored that she decided to come on
the show today. We're friends! We are friends! We're totally
friends. And I'm so grateful because for a very long
time, for many years, Melissa has been Been an icon,
a food icon that she is one of my idols
in the industry, it's someone who I aspire to be
like, because her recipes are foolproof, and- You need more
hair. I just need a little bit more hair. I
once had a lot of hair, but- [LAUGH] Now it's
a little short. Specially cuz I got a hair cut
this week. It's very nice. But Melissa is here, she
is a food writer for the New York Times, which
is incredible and she also has a new book out.
I do have a new book out. So you've got
it right here, Dinner in an Instant. Now we were
talking about this before, are you an instant pot person?
Have you embraced the electric pressure cooker? Or you- [LAUGH]
So I am a instant pot newbie. So our test
kitchen manager here, Food and Wine, Kelsey Youngman is the
expert. So she teaches me everything Instant pot. But that's
part of why we wanted you on the show, because
you are an Instant Pot expert. I am. I mean,
I don't think I'm an expert, but I'm definitely an
enthusiast. I love the Instant Pot And I wrote a
book about it. And you know it all started because
I'm a columnist for the New York Times and I
wrote an article about the instant pot phenomenon. Because all
of a sudden you'd see, like you'd go on Instagram,
everybody would be Instant Pie Right. You know where they'd
put up their photos There is this Facebook group that
has like a million users. It became this phenomenon almost
over night. And I wanted to see what the fuss
was about. So I got one of these things and
I started cooking. And I fell in love. You can
make, you know brisket that takes two and a half
hours. You do it in like 45 minutes. My favorite,
beans, dried chick peas. Okay, Soak them overnight and cook
them for four hours. And forget about it. 50 minutes
starting from the dry peas. Stuff like this changes people's
lives. It literally changes week night cooking. It does. It
does. You can do a lentil soup in six minutes.
You can do steel cut oats in the morning in
five minutes. I mean this is the kind of thing
that just helps people. And like a slow cooker, you
just plug it in and you walk away. And it
just Does it. I love that. And it's so funny
that you say that because, and this is gonna speak
to how much I love Melissa Clark, but. So, everyone
was talking about the Instapot and I was like, I
don't need a machine. I'm like, I like to cook.
Yeah. I like to use pots, real pots. And then
I heard that you were writing A book. And I
was like, my God, what is all the fuss about?
So then I was like, okay, I need to be
a convert, because Melissa Clark's doing it, so I might
as well do it. [LAUGH] So you know what they
call it, people who love the Instant Pot? What's that?
Potheads. [LAUGH] So we're just gonna be potheads together here.
I think there's definitely- 11 o'clock in the morning. A
pun intended Intended. Yeah, just a little bit. Okay, so
I'm gonna, by the end of this show, I'm gonna
be a pothead. You're gonna be a pothead, we're gonna
be potheads together. And so one thing about the Instant
Pot is that, so mac and cheese, we're gonna make
pimento mac and cheese. We are making pimento mac and
cheese! And it's some things it does better than the
stove, like meat And beans they're better, they're actually like
more evenly cooked. Mac and cheese it does it also
like really reliably, and you can go do other thing.
Cause you're like why would you do mac and cheese
in this when it's not, it doesn't take a long
time. Because it does it beautifully, and we're gonna show
you. And then you could just walk away. Yeah. Great,
so when Melissa told me she wanted to make pimento
mac and cheese on the show I got really excited
and actually decided to theme the whole show around pimento
cheese. And there's another reason for that- Because you're a
mad genius- Because I'm a mad genius, but I got
the idea from you. But I also got the idea
because, so my friend Ashley Christiensen who's a chef in
North Carolina, she has Beasley's and has Poole's Diner. She
actually sent me a care package Of the different pimento
cheeses she makes and she does, you can see it
right here on my Instagram, she does a variety of
them and one of them, she actually uses green peppers
instead of red peppers, and so she uses poblanos. Which
is a little bit spicier than the pimento Right. And
like a little bit smokey Yep And I was like,
my gosh. I literally have to steal this idea. I'm
borrowing it. Cuz I'm totally giving her all the credit
for it. And I actually -> She's inspired you. We
love to inspire each other. Right? Exactly. We inspire each
other. You inspire me all the time. [NOISE] No, it's
true. I want to make the apple all the time.
This is changing my life as we speak. So he
makes this apple tart where he like makes the apple
into a rose. Like how beautiful is that. I'm going
to do that. Well, your version will pry be better
than mine. So Ashley inspired me to create a bunch
recipes. But because I though a lot of people Maybe
a lot of people watching don't realize what pimento cheese
is but it's a very American thing, right? Yes. So
I figured we'd start with my version of a very
classic one and then we'll move on to my riff
and then we'll move on to your Instant Pot mac
and cheese. To the new classic mac and cheese with
pimentos. And the Instant Pot of course. We're gonna start
Pimento can be spelled two ways. I don't wanna get
into all the nitty gritty but, it can be spelled
with two I's which is pimiento, which is actually the
Spanish term for sweet red pepper correct? Correct exactly. And
then in America when we say pimento which is spelt
with one I, we usually refer to the pimento cheese
which is actually [UNKNOWN] here. These little guys. These little
guys here. Which you find in a jar pretty much
anywhere. Yep. So okay, let's get started with my classic
version. But wait, we have to say something about pimientos.
Pimiento stuffed olives are underrated, and I want to do.
You and I need to do more, so if anybody
out there loves pimiento-stuffed olives, I mean, am I the
only one? No, I love them. Martini, we want to
hear what you're doing with them. Martinis, bloody Mary's. No,
no, but aside from drinks. You can use them in
salads and things, so tell us, please. Hashtag. I think
we need to have you back To do that. Okay,
call to action. Using hastag madgeniuslive. Give us some ideas.
We want to be inspired by you. And I want
to learn fun things, other than just eating them out
of my martini. Pimento stuffed olives, ready, set, go. Okay,
so let's get started. So I'm gonna have to drain
the pimentos in this bowl here. Because this is very
simple, there's very few ingredients. And I have some shredded
yellow cheddar here. Which is the main ingredient besides the
pimentos and You can't use white cheddar for this right
because it's not going to look right?>> Not for this
version.>>Right it's not going to look right.>> The classic version
is it's like orange, it's bright orange.>> It's got to
be.>> Yes, so I just shredded this in my food
processor but I want to show you, you can do
this all by hand it can be a A really
a dump and stir recipe and I tend to like
my pimento cheese really fine. But some people like it
a little more course. So I just wanna show people
two ways of using a box grater. So if you
press firmly and you do long strokes with your cheese
on your box grater, you get these long shreds. But
for my pimento cheese I like to do little short.
Spurts like this, because you get much finer cheese. You
know, I actually never knew that you could do, I
never thought about. [LAUGH] I've never thought about the two
different ways to grate cheddar cheese. So this is. Handy
dandy box grater ladies and gentlemen. This is a good
thing. Okay, let me just add this in here. And
you finish that. Yep, and then we're going to. You
want me to do the onion? I'm gonna hand you
this. You wanna stir the peppers into here? Sure. So
here you go. [SOUND] And then another ingredient which, some
people put garlic, some people use onion, some people don't
use any. I like to grate onion and add it
to the mixture. And I'm grating it because obviously we're
not using a food processor or anything like that. We're
just Well another great thing about grating sorry. [LAUGH] Is
that embarrassing? is that you get the juice. It's not
just the pieces of onion, you're getting onion juice and
that mixes in really well so you're getting a more
intense onion flavor for using less of the onion, if
that makes sense. That makes a lot of sense and
it also But the little pieces that you get in
there from grainy are not the little pieces where you're
gonna get and then you're like, my God my breath's
gonna smell- Right, exactly. All day long. The juice's much
better Right. It actually gets into everything and you don't
have those little pieces stuck on your teeth. Right. So,
we like grater. And also for garlic too. Do you
use that for garlic? Yeah, of course. I'm a huge
grated garlic person. Every night for dinner when I make
my salad dressing, I grate a clove of garlic into
the bowl. Uh-huh. A whole clove of garlic for just
the two of us. We're used to each other so
it's fine. [LAUGH] A pinch of salt, lemon juice, and
olive oil and that's my salad dressing. [SOUND] Okay, so
I have about two tablespoons of Grated onion. I'm going
to put it in, let you mix it around. It's
very fragrant, that onion. But another thing, it doesn't hurt
my eyes. When you grate it, it's not, you know
when you cho pit and you start to cry immediately,
the grating is a little more gentle on the eyes.
A lot more gentle. And then, of course, the other
main ingredient is mayonnaise. Everything should have mayonnaise. Everything should
have mayonnaise or butter. Almost, almost everything I put it
in? Yeah, go ahead. So it's not, let me just
reach over you. It might sound a little crazy, but
this is actually, I don't think you can make pimento
cheese without mayonaisse, right? You can't, why would you do
such a thing? Because it's kind of a basically, and
I don't think we got into exactly what pimento cheese
is, but it's basically like a dip or a spread.
Right. And you can, as you can see here we
have a beautiful [INAUDIBLE] platter with tons of crackers. Because
I don't think you, I don't eat pimento cheese without
either Ritz or saltines. Which do you like better, Ritz
or saltines? Ritz. Yes, Ritz are better. Because it's so
buttery and deliciious. All right. I'm going to add some
hot sauce here. I do a half a teaspoon but,
That's a lot. That's good. I know, it is a
lot. It gives it a kick. I like it. Every,
yesterday when we were making some of this in the
kitchen here. [UNKNOWN] is like, a half a teaspoon? Yeah,
no because you know what? It's not just the spice,
it's also, Tabasco has vinegar. Mm-hm. And it's like you
need the vinegar to cut the richness of the mayo
and the cheese. Like it all just, it's just like
a perfect food. Yep. Pimento cheese, it's a perfect food.
I'm gonna add a little of salt. Pepper, okay great,
great. Do you add pepper to yours? I do, I
actually add black pepper. And you know what else I
add sometimes when I'm feeling like wild and crazy? Celery
salt. Oooo. I know, that was a little thing I
picked up in the South and it's nice. It just
gives it that little something, something extra. That's really smart.
Some people use garlic powder in the pimento cheese. I
don't like that so much, I just like the onion
and no garlic powder. I like garlic and then, I'm
not a garlic powder person so, but I do like
onion I'm actually a huge garlic powder Are you really?
What do you with it Garlic powder and onion powder,
I make tons of dressing. Like->> Interesting. Fake ranches or
homemade ranches. Okay. So we actually have a question from
a viewer and they wanna know what they could do
if they didn't use mayonaisse. So what do you think?
I would do well with sour cream for sure. Sour
cream. Sour cream is a good one. You need something
to bind it. Right. So look how this is bound
together in that creaminess. If you don't have something like
that, then the cheese isn't gonna adhere So if you
try to use olive oil, it's going to be a
gloppy mess. But I think that you could probably use
yogurt. You could use yogurt, the flavor would be weird.
The flavor would be weird. If you use yogurt, try
to find a really mild Greek yogurt so one that's
not so tangy. That is a really good point. That
looks absolutely beautiful. This is why we have [UNKNOWN] on
the show, because she's here to answer all the difficult
questions. I love to answer, I love answering. My first
gig when I first started out at the New York
Times I wrote a column called the Food Chain and
this was when people actually wrote in letters and asked
questions before people could find anything on the Internet, they'd
write questions like why do eggs deflate if you put
fat in the egg whites when you're beating? Yes, please.
And I would answer them in the paper. And you
can watch videos and read your articles from the New
York Times Cooking, right? Yeah, okay, so New York Times
Cooking, if you're interested in the Instant Pot at all,
New York Times Cooking, nytcooking.com, has a whole guide how
to use it. Everything you've always wanted to know about
the Instant Pot that I wrote. So you have us
check it out. So you should check it out actually.
And we're gonna try this, so. Can we eat this?
Yeah, so this is our classic My version of a
classic pimento cheese. MMMM. You can see here, I like
to serve it with Ritz crackers are my favorite way
to eat it. It's so delicious. But you can have
it with cucumbers, Perfect! And celery. I think I put
a little bit too much tobasco in it. No, I
love it, I love it. It's waking me up this
morning. A little spicy. So. You going to make this
stuff in time? We're going to make the second kind,
which as I mentioned in the opener, is inspired by
Ashley Christianson from North Carolina. She has pools [INAUDIBLE] and
she has beasley's, and she makes a poblano pimento cheese.
So this is a poblano pepper. It's green obviously. It's
a little pointy. And It has kind of a medium
thickness skin, I mean it's not quite as thick as
like a red bell pepper, but it's not super thin.
So we like to peel them. And one of the
ways that we do, how would you describe the flavor
of a poblano? So a poblano I would say it's
a milder chili. You know, it's much more intense than
a bell pepper, of course. But it's not like a
jalapeno, it's much milder, kind of splits the difference. Right.
I love it also for its sweetness. Yeah. It's got
incredible sweetness. So it's sweet and a little bit of
spicy. This is your, like-- If you ever-- Okay, here's
a good hack. [LAUGH] I'm gonna give you a mad
genius tip. Okay. If you ever want-- If you ever
are thinking, I don't wanna use jalapeno in something, it's
just a little too hot, and you can find a
poblano, use a little poblano instead because it's a little
milder. Especially for raw things. That is really, really smart.
Here you go. And this is like one of my
ingrdients for the moment. Like I know it's not a
new thing, but I'm obsessed with it right now. So
I'm so glad it's [UNKNOWN]. So the way that you
peel this. I'm gonna go right over to the stove
here. Because you actually roast these over an open flame
as you know. But just in case people at home
don't realize, you can actually do this right on your
stove top like this. You see, I already have these
charring And they get really nice and black and charred
and you can see that the skin becomes a little
ashy and you can do this under a broiler, really
close to a broiler, and you can also do it
on a barbeque. So, once you get them charred all
over like this you transfer them to a bowl and
I'm going to let you cover this. And, you have
Another mad genius tip for you. I love tips. She's
full of them. I'm going to bring her on the
Mad Genius staff I think. Think. Awesome. So instead mostly
you see how you used plastic wrap but if you
want to do it in slightly more eco friendly way
just put a plate on top of it and then
you don't have the extra trash so. I mean. The
point is you want to steam them. See how the.
Yeah. Steam is building in there? Because the steam is
going to help the skin release easily from the flesh
of the pepper and I just have to say so
right before we went live I was like okay Melissa
then I'm going to ask you to cover. Or we
can use a plate becasue it's a little more eco-friendly
and I was like yes. Yes absolutely we can and
we need to that so we did. Okay I'm going
to show you what these loook like after they steam
and Melissa and I are going to, I'm going to
give one to Melissa, she's goin gto get this big
one. Can I use some paper towels to get off
some of the. My gosh, yeah I have some right
here. Perfectly! Perfect little Look at that! Look at this
paper towels already. So cool, so one of my other
hacks is to have like little individual slices of paper
towels. Yeah, who's going to do that for you? So
check out the [laughter] So here's a hack- Well we
have David McCann who's our test kitchen assistant here, so
he did these for me That's awesome Very nice of
him. I'll could have my child do it actually, my
nine year old is capable of doing that I think.
So You could see here, we're just wiping pretty much,
but I'm gonna just go right over you for this
knife. Yep. You can literally wipe off the skins with
paper towel. Yeah, it comes right off. I sometimes like
to use a knife, like this. And it pretty much,
these are humungous. These are the biggest. I think I'm
gonna cut this. They're beautiful. Some people wanna rinse these
under water, right? And you shouldn't do that cuz then
you're rinsing away a lot of the flavor. Right. So
don't do that. Cuz it releases some oils. Yeah. As
it's cooking, so I'm just peeling it and I'm seeding
it. You see that? I just take that right out.
This is really good->> Sorry, [UNKNOWN] No problem, and you
just scrape off the skin I wanted to slice it
open because I want to show you the other way
I like to peel is. I go like this and
then I'm just going to scrape, I actually learned this
working in restaurants because we had to peel every single
red pepper that we used.>>oh god.>>because it was a classic
french restaurant so.>> Did they make you peel the peas.>>
my gosh, everything, the snap peas even you literally I
was like we're pealing snap peas Who peels a [UNKNOWN]?
I don't even know how to do that. I don't
know. Something's beeping. Something's beeping. That is our swap. That
is [LAUGH]. So I'm just [UNKNOWN]. Are we allowed to
talk about that? We are, cuz it's television but everyone
knows that. Everyone knows we have swaps. Everyone knows that
we have swaps. Okay, so we peeled our peppers. I'm
only gonna use one for this recipe. And I'm going
to transfer it to a food processor. This is Food
and Wine's food processor, that we put out just recently.
And I'm just gonna give it a rough chop to
get it going. You're just using one of them. Just
using one of them. But I wanted to put Melissa
to work. Right, exactly. [LAUGH] Otherwise, what would I do?
I'd twiddle my thumbs. You'll actually Share tons of information
because that's what you've been doing and I love it.
I like wish i had as much information to share
No, you totally do, we're a good team this way
because we can go back and forth. And then that
tip and then that tip! And then that one. So
I'm just going to add this to this food processor
Can we just stop and talk about this like crazy
This is our immersion blender that actually converts into a
food processor, I really love it because it saves a
lot of space in the kitchen. Because you don't have
the thing on the bottom. Exactly! I'm just going to
chop it a little bit. [SOUND] The pepper. And then
I'm going to go ahead and add- will you hand
me a rubber spatula? I will. Thank you. Do you
want me to grate the onion for this? Yes, please.
So, also for this version, I'm putting grated onion in
it. For the same reason as glass but I'm also
gonna add, so I have my pepper in here. I'm
gonna add the graded onion. I'm, gonna add, so for
this version I'm adding green hot sauce. Okay. Instead of
tabasco. To keep the whole thing green. Yeah just to
give it this verde theme goign. I know that you
probably wouldn't do this but what do you think of
the idea of Cilantro in the green version to green
it up. I think it's a great idea. You think
that's a- Because I love cilantro. You think that'd be
good? Yeah. Cilantro haters- But actually, believe it or not,
I'll tell you a little insider secret, and Melissa will
probably be very familiar with this, but when I develop
recipes for Food and Wine, Whether it's the magazine or
the cookbooks or digitally, I always try to keep the
ingredient list really short. Right, right. Yes. It's easier. Yeah.
So although when I create recipes like this, I"m like,
I want to put cilantro in it, I want to
put this and I want to do two kinds of
green peppers. Right. I say to myself, okay, let's start
making it and scale it back. And how do we
get it under ten ingredients? It's like when a French
woman gets stressed, right? She puts on her accessories, and
then before Before she leaves the house, she takes off
one thing. Right? Same thing. So smart. Yup. Okay, so
we have our poblano, we have two teaspoons of green
hot sauce. I added the two tablespoons grated onion. I'm
gonna put it back on and just give it another
quick pulse before, wait, it's all right. [SOUND] I'll go
back. [SOUND] All right, and then I'm gonna add my
mayonnaise, because it has to have mayonnaise, and I'm gonna
add my cheese. So I shredded my cheese prior to
this, but this is what I was saying before where
if I weren't using a food processor, I would want
the cheese more finely shredded. I see. Right. So this
is bigger than your other one. Mm-hmm. Because we're gonna
chop it up more. Yeah. You could see here. Yup.
Like it's so much bigger. Now did you grate that
in the food processor too? Yeah. Did you put the
little graty thing on there? Yeah, I put the little
Grater dis on and then I grate it which made
it a lot quicker. But then I like to put
it in at the end with a blade. Right. Oops,
I'm spilling this everywhere. That's okay, I'll clean up after
you. And then I'm just gonna pulse this. And so
it comes together.https://worker.mturk.com/ And then we're gonna eat it again,
right? Yeah. We should have it in a saltine this
time, just mix it up. What do you think? I
think we should. So we just, you know, be different
that way. Just to be fair. Fair to saltines. [NOISE]
And I'm pausing because I don't wanna puree, I wanna
leave a little bit of texture. [SOUND] But it's okay
if you have texture, because it not only makes it
pretty, but you get all the little bites of everything.
All right, I'm gonna go a litlte bit more. Yeah,
there's like one big chunk in there. One big pepper
that keeps getting stuck on the top. I know, right?
Now I see it. Okay, good. This dang pepper is
gonna be the death of me. We're gonna get it.
We're gonna get that pepper. We're gonna get it, okay.
We're gonna hunt it down and we're gonna puree it.
[SOUND] I think that looks good. Yeah. Looks beautiful. All
right. so this is pablano pimento cheese. Very nice. Imagine
this life. Is that going to be like a new
song? Are you going to have a little number with
that? We're going to have a segment where we just
sing the recipes. I think that that would be quite
good. My god. I could do that. And I'm definitely
going to have you on for that one. Do you
sing? Well no but I'll pretend. I'll fake it, I'll
fake it till I make it Look at this. And
one thing I didn't mention is that you could actually,
so when I tested this recipe I actually didn't add
any salt to it. [CROSSTALK] believe it or not You
didn't add any salt because of the cheese and the
mayo had enough salt or Because of the cheese but
then also because it's, the hot sauce I use is
green it's much milder than tobasco. So I added Like
four times as much. That's right, you just said two
teaspons. Yeah, two teaspons. So after I added the hotsauce,
I actually felt like it didn't need, it really didn't
need any additional salt. Which I know is great for
people at home who are trying to watch their sodium
intake. Okay, look at this, and it's so awesome because
they're both super simple recipies. And as I like to
say on Mad Genius Live, is it's genius because it's
simple. Yes, it's so ture. So true. Actually, that is
true. I'm going to eat this now. Okay. And we
also have to- Wow. Good? That's so good. It doesn't
even need salt. It doesn't even need salt. My God.
I like it just as much as that. I didn't
think I would. Yeah. So we did our classic version,
my version of a classic We did the poblano pimento
cheese. And the great thing about pimento cheese, believe it
or not, it's not just a dip you eat with
crackers and crudites, but you can use it for a
lot of different things. I love to actually make stuffed
grilled cheese with it. And, which we're gonna show you
a picture of, and you can get the recipe for
that, foodandwine.com, there it is. But I also love, and
this is a recent recipe of mine, I like to
stuff it under chicken skin, and then roast the whole
bird. That is insane. It is insane. Yeah. It's beautiful.
It flavors all the meat. It's so good. All right.
All right. The moment we've been waiting for, because although
we love a classic and a riff, we're going to
do the ultimate riff on pimento cheese Pimento mac and
cheese, cuz everybody loves a mac and cheese, and we
love pimento cheese, so. Yes, and so if you're just
joining us, Melissa Clark from the New York Times is
here to talk about her new book, Dinner In an
Instant, which is available everywhere now. Instant Pot. Yes it
is actually, and when you buy your Instant Pot you
can just order it along side. I know, because I
actually went onto Amazon and it said frequently bought together,
you know how it pops up at the bottom. It
says people bought an Instant Pot and they bought Melissa
Clark's book and then they bought 4 other Melissa Clark
books because she has like a hundred of them. [LAUGH]
But not about the Instant Pot, but about other things.
So before we get started with pimento mac and cheese,
just tell us About the book and tell us what
got you started with Instant Pot. As I was saying
earlier, but if you missed it, I was curious about
wha the Instant Pot phenomena was. I'm a reporter for
the times and I had an assignment to find out
why people were in love with their Instant Pot. So
I bought one and, really, I put it through every
single test. I made Pretty much everything you can think
of to make in it, and somethings it does better
than traditional methods. It's fantastic for braising meat, it is
fabulous for making beans, hard root vegetables you know beets
how you put them in the oven and they just
never cook, 15 minutes in the Instapot and so what
it does it does really really well There are some
things it doesn't do. [LAUGH] Do not try to get
crispy in there, it's not gonna get crispy. And I
wrote it all down in the book. And see those
ribs on the cover. My god, sticky ribs, sticky [UNKNOWN]
ribs, 22 minutes. My gosh. I, Set at four hours.
Yeah, because you usually have to do them really low
and slow but because this combines pressure along with heat
you get a very even cooking and you get a
very fast cooking so it's brilliant and you can just
like slow cook I would say It's like a slow
cooker, except it's fast. [LAUGH] You just plug it in
and you walk away and it does its thing. So
Melissa said it was brilliant, but because she's on [UNKNOWN]
side I'm gonna say it's genius. It's genius. It's mad
genius. Okay. So we're gonna make this pimento mac and
cheese and first thing I want you to do- Yes?
Is Okay, one thing, one problem with the instant pot
is because it heats from the bottom. Sometimes, it can
burn. Okay. So, we're gonna brush it with butter to
keep that from happening. Great. So. So, what is one
tablespoon of butter and then just brush it. Can I
just throw it in there? You throw it and then
just brush it about half way at the pot. Okay.
Not even like a third way of the pot. Okay.
And i've got some garlic here. So, what's so great
about cooking your pasta When you make mac and cheese
normally you boil your pasta and then you mix it
with the sauce, right? Right. We're gonna cook it in
the sauce, so it's gonna get incredibly flavorful. A lot
more flavorful than cooking it in water. Which is why
I feel like that's one of the many things that
makes this recipe really genius. So I've got a garlic
clove, cuz garlic. I put garlic in everything. If you
don't like garlic in your mac and cheese, leave it
out. But it really adds a lot A little bit
of cayenne.>>Okay.>> I am just putting this in the blender
and here do you want. Well we have a chopped
one but we chopped a jalepeno. We did the mies
in plas.>> I can chop one for you.>>Here you want
to do it. Okay.>> We'll see if I can get
it done in time, before you need it.>> Otherwise we
have a backup right here.>> Okay. Do you seed your
jalepeno? Okay this is what I do, I kind of
I smell it Okay to see how hot it is
Ohh that's a really Cause you can kind of like,
if prickles your nose, if you smell it and goes
ahh! You gotta- The smell is so sweet. Yeah so
then you can leave the seeds in, because it's not
going to be that hot. I like literally,this is like
blowing my mind becsuse I don't know, I always put
my finger on it and lick it. Sometimes I just
actually lick it. [LAUGH] This is so genius I never
thought about this thing My God. Yeah, it's good, right?
That is crazy. It literally smells sweet. It smells like
a bell pepper. Right, exactly. So you know it's not
going to be that- My God. You might take out
some of the seeds, just cuz it gets texturally a
litlte wonky. Yeah. But you don't have to worry. If
that was really hot, you'd want to really get the
seeds and the veins out. Right. Okay. Mustard powder. I'm
going back to my blender. Mustard powder A little- Which
I love. Yeah, mustard powder just gives it a different
kinda kick. A little bit more butter, cuz why not?
Butter's good. And then here's the thing, cream cheese. Cream
cheese makes mac and cheese super creamy, so- This is
a huge jalapeno. And milk. I'm just going to blend
this whole thing together, and this is the sauce that
we're going to cook the noodles in. And a little
bit of heavy cream. If the heavy cream freaks you
out, just use more milk. I love richness, I love-
But it doesn't look like you're putting too much. No,
it's just a little, and what it does is it
just adds a little bit of roundness and richness, but
it's not, strictly, necessary. Okay, we're gonna- [BLANK_AUDIO] So you
do not put the jalapeno into the blender? No, you
just throw it in the pot. Okay. I'm gonna turn
this on, loud noise, sorry. I was always taught in
video, don't talk over a blender. But because we're live
I don't care! [LAUGH] And we're gonna talk over the
blender. This is the biggest jalapeno I've literally ever chopped.
That is a huge jalapeno. So I'm gonna let you
decide how much we have. We're gonna just use all
of it. Okay. Cuz we're gonna live dangerously. Okay so
you have that all buttered? Yep, this is all buttered,
I got it ready for you. I'm gonna show everybody
how beautiful that is. That is beautiful, thank you. Beautifully
buttered. Let's put this in first. Okay, so we're gonna
add that in here, okay. So this is just So
this is our sauce. Whoop, I got a little milk
on my face. I'm sorry. [LAUGH] I splashed you. Sorry,
sorry. It's all right. No problem. By the way. No
problem, we have our paper towel. Aha, perfect proportioned paper
towel. Yeah. [LAUGH] Okay, I'm throwing this in. Okay. And
when I developed the recipe, first thing I did was
to put the jalapeno in after this came out. I
didn't cook it with it. Uh-huh. I thought I wanted
the crunch. But then it turns out I didn't. It
was too crunchy. I wanted it to be cooked a
little bit, and it infused the sauce with more flavor.
[UNKNOWN] Now we have our noodles. So just macaroni, I've
also done this by the way, if you don't have
macaroni, I had butterflies for [UNKNOWN] Yeah, for [UNKNOWN] And
it works exactly the same. So you can use other
shapes if you're out of macaroni, but classic. I tend
to like a classic elbow. I like a classic too
I'm just gonna give this a stir. [BLANK_AUDIO] Now you
wanna stir it but you don't wanna mess up the
butter on the bottom. Okay, the brushed butter. The brushed
butter, so just give it like a gentle stir, and
then you seal the top. Come on. And you, all
right, this is very important. So you see this little
knob here? Yeah. This is the venting knob and the
sealing knob. If it's not, see it says venting and
it says sealing. If it is not in the right
place, instead of pressurizing, it'll just vent it. So it'll
cook it, but only halfway, and you won't get the
pressure. So you wanna- This is a newbie mistake that
I have made. Everybody makes this mistake, they for get
to put it, they'll leave the knob like this, and
they'll wonder, why is my chicken only halfway cooked? And
it's because, I'm telling you now, don't do that when
you start playing with that. Make sure it is sealed.
Good to know, Mad Genius set, make sure you set.
Yeah, no it's like a little thing that everyone. I
did the same thing when I first got it. Okay,
and thenyou set it to, so we want to set
it to. [BLANK_AUDIO] Is this plugged in? I think it
is plugged in. Is it on? You can turn it
if you need to turn it. It is not- Is
it not working? It's not working. Okay, well let's just
pretend that we set it to six minutes. [LAUGH] Six
minutes on high pressure, so and then it goes beep.
Okay, let's show it. Okay, we're gonna check our plug
but can you show us like what you would do?
Yeah, you would just, you go pressure cook, and then
it would give you a number, and you would just
click it up to six minutes. Okay. I flick it
down, and then it would go on and it will
have a little on and it'll just be lit up
in blue. And it's very pretty. And enough about that,
let's go to the one that we have already cooked.
Okay, just sometimes I see you, it's on manual. You
set it, you set and you set it for six
minutes. So does it takes six minutes or does it
have to [UNKNOWN] from the pressure first? Okay, wait, this
is another thing. When you're using the Instant Pot It
always takes a certain amount of time to reach pressure.
So this takes about ten minutes. So it's 6 minutes
cooking, but 10 minutes of reaching pressure. So it's a
16 minute thing. But you don't have to sit here.
When you're cooking on the stove you have to mind
it. This you plug in, you walk away. You E-mail
someone. You help your kid with your homework. It frees
you up. Which is- I mean, especially on a weeknight
15 minutes is like valuable time- Yes, my god, 15
minutes, I can do so much in 15 minutes on
a week night. Okay, so I'm going to switch with
you because I want you to show us. Okay. So
this is- So you notice that we didn't put the
cheese in yet or the pimento and that's because we
It will get stringy if you cook it in there,
so we're just gonna add it now. Okay. So you
can see this is ready. We're gonna vent it. [SOUND]
Okay. So it's released itself a little bit. Sometimes it
goes [SOUND]. Yeah, so we actually set this right before
we went live. So it's been sitting for about 20
minutes. Okay, and then we're just gonna wait. Now, you
know that this is done venting when this little button
over here is gonna [SOUND] fall down. So, when this
button is raised, it is actually a safety measure. There
it goes. Yeah, see it prevents you from opening. Okay.
And when it drops down- There was a little button
on top. Ooohh. And then here it is. Doesn't it
smell good? Here's your spoon. We got- Or do you
want a bigger spoon, like a wooden spoon? Wooden spoon.
I didn't even see that. Okay, so this looks Okay,
so we're gonna add the cheese. All righty. [BLANK_AUDIO] And
we're gonna add the pimento, and the heat of the
pasta's gonna cook it. And you said, you told me
before that it's always nice to have a little bit
of milk on hand in case. Yeah, because this looks
kind of thick. Sometimes if you let it sit like
a few minutes extra it'll thicken up. Yeah. So Add
a little bit of milk and we're going to stir
it until the cheese melts. And you never know, so
different pastor browns cook at different rates, to see that
you get this and you taste it, it's like this
is a little crunchy, all you would do is take
this, you put it on top, don't seal it. Just
hang out And then, the residual heat and the steam
will continue to cook it, so never worry about it
being a little too crunchy. Right. It'll soften up. I
know we have some towels here. Are you comfortable if
I lift it up just for a second, to show
people all the melty cheese? Yeah, can people see? I'm
just gonna show the camera really quick, so they can
get it. Yeah, yeah. Go for it. And then, we're
gonna put it back cuz I think Melissa wants to
get it. Do you see that, how it's getting super
melty? She's literally stirring the cheese, it's sliding down the
pan, look at that. It's super super creamy. I'm gonna
put it back, let her finish, just for all of
you. I think we're done, I think we're finished. We
can eat this now. It looks like it's ready to
eat. Yeah, we're done. So easy, right? Easy, after work,
super simple feed your kids. By the way, if you
wanna make regular mac and cheese I have a recipe
in my book for regular mac and cheese that doesn't
use pimentos. And it's possibly more child friendly, depending on
your kid. [LAUGH] My kid- Right, because some kids probably
don't like the pepper. Some kids don't like the peppers
especially there's jalape��o in there too, so. Right. So you
can definitely like, so this is like it seems like
a very adaptable recipe as long as you leave kind
of the liquid quantities the same the cheese quantities the
same and all of that, you can kid of customize
it right. Absolutely, you know what I did for, so
I have a new book that I'm working on which
is called Instant Comfort. Yes. Comfort in an instant, and
I did mushroom mac and cheese with [INAUDIBLE] So good.
Yum, yum, like that's kind of that's a really adult
thing. That's like, yeah, that's a grown up version. Look
at how cheesy this is! Yeah. I can't believe how
quick this was! Okay. Can we eat it? Let's try
it. Okay. [LAUGH] Wait it might need salt and pepper.
Here I'll taste it first and let you know. Okay,
I'm sure it's gonna need salt. Maybe a little salt.
Yeah no, sorry, I forgot to salt it. So you
stir in your [UNKNOWN] and then you season it, right?
Yeah, you'd put your salt and peppe in here. This
is so good. Mm-hm, right? Mm-hm, it's like the perfect
mac and cheese. And it's the the whole [CROSSTALK] In
15 work-free minutes. And the whole time, just a little
bit but not too much. Not too much, it's so
good. My goodness, this is so delicious. Don't forget, we
want you to be engaged with in tuning in. Is
this weird? [LAUGH] That is not weird at all. That's
not weird, right? This is a double pimento cheese fantasy
wrong right now. I'm gonna do both. My God, yes,
both! Here, I'll give you a little. Yeah. This is
crazy town right here, this is genius. This is really
good. Let me grab your [UNKNOWN]. Okay. Do this at
home, people, do this at home. Melissa Clark from The
New York Times is here on Mad Genius Live, talking
about her new book, Dinner in an Instant. She just
made, I think it's one of my new favorite mac
and cheese recipes, pimento mac and cheese. We also made
a classic mac and cheese, and a riff on a
classic called poblano pimento cheese Mac and pablano- Pimento cheese.
Pimento cheese. [LAUGHTER] And, I'm so thrilled that you came
on. You're actually my very first guest on the show.
Yay, well thank you for having me. And, you're my
favorite guest, too. And I'm gonna call it that. Well,
I'm your only guest, so I have to be your
favorite. Because- [LAUGHTER] You're literally one of my idols. Thank
you, so much. We're gonna keep eating this- Don't forget
to tune into Mad Genius Live next week. Don't forget
to continue to send comments and questions, because we're going
to get to them, even though we're not live, after
the show, using the #madgeniuslive. And tune in next week
at 11 AM Eastern time on Thursday. Thank you Melissa.
Thanks for having me. [MUSIC]

You May Like

DELICIOUS DEAL

12 ISSUES FOR JUST $12

Sign Up for Our Newsletter

Keeping you in the know on all the latest & greatest food and travel news, and other special offers.